I don't mean this as en endorsement of the protests, but I don't buy his reasoning, at least as far as the US is concerned.
Places like Congo or Rwanda or Sudan or to a lesser extent Syria don't generate page 1 coverage while their deaths were occurring, and so are not going to generate as strong of a reaction. And there was very little or no US direct involvement there, so there was little for protects to affect. At least with US funding for Israel in the current conflict, there's something they could point to that they may be able to have a political effect on; not saying they should get their way, and not saying they are going about the best course of action to get their way, but there's at least a there there.
Of course Afghanistan and Iraq go directly against that point, since the US was very very much directly involved there. With that, I would say the fact it was the US attacked (in the case of Afghanistan) or directly threatened (as was alleged in the case of Iraq) are going to warrant different reactions to the collateral civilian deaths that US involvement brought; yes that same attack occurred to Israel, but the undercurrent of reaction is going to be vastly different throughout society when it was us attacked, rather than even a close ally attacked. Selfish, yes, but it is what it is. And I would also say that the US was soooo involved there it made protesting moot from the start. It's one thing when you're trying to change one funding line on a few bills; it's another thing when you're trying to stop the entire machine of the US military; once the latter gets going some campus protests aren't going to do squat.